In 2025, Salut! Baroque is proud to celebrate 30 years of presenting Baroque Music at its Best!
“The fine flow and contrasts within any Salut! Baroque event is a successful recipe, now something of the stuff of legend after 29 years of performance. Carefully chosen works … fill the Salut! Baroque concerts, from superstar, household names to quite obscure or never before heard composers.” Paul Nolan, Sydney Arts Guide, 2024
Forming a new ensemble in 1995 was an exciting prospect, full of possibilities. As we reflect on our remarkable journey since then, we celebrate sharing our experiences with the 140 fabulous musicians who have performed with us, the diverse music of 280 brilliant composers, and our wonderful supportive audiences.
In this celebratory year, our concerts span the ages, honouring Baroque music as it emerged from the Renaissance, its dynamic peak and grandeur, and its evolution into the Classical period. Our programs pay tribute to the composers and musicians of this rapidly changing era who broke with tradition to become the pioneers of new instrumental techniques and performance styles. It brought forth a musical era based on drama, emotion, diversity and creativity, threading together politics, religion and social progress.
We look forward to performing with friends old and new, with music by our favourite composers and, as always, sharing new discoveries as we celebrate 30 years of The Best of Baroque!
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Music to Celebrate
A feast of glorious music launches our celebratory year, with compositions spanning 400 years. Creativity bloomed in the baroque period as concerts moved away from the confines of the church and royal courts into the public realm, with different styles becoming the “pop music” of the day. Music became more accessible through printing, creating an independent market for enterprising composers, performers, publishers and promoters alike. Our program will include some of The Four Seasons by Giovanni Guido, written around eight years before Vivaldi’s most famous composition, and Jan Rokyta’s enchanting Balkanology, written 300 years later and inspired by traditional Romanian and Turkish music with its complex rhythms and harmonies.
Canberra: Friday 31 January 2025, 7.30pm, Wesley Church, 20 National Circuit, Forrest, Canberra
Sydney: Sunday 2 February 2025, 3.00pm, Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Baroque Spirit
Baroque music encapsulates the dynamic spirit of the 17th and 18th centuries that goes beyond listening pleasure to reflect the social, cultural and political upheavals of the period. Drawing inspiration from Ottoman, Romani and Celtic influences, Baroque Spirit explores the rich weave of styles as nations looked beyond their European borders towards new discoveries. Composers sought innovative approaches to embellish their work for a newly popularised music market. This was aided by explorers, traders and missionaries, reflecting their thirst for new horizons and unique perspectives in an ever-expanding world. The result was music that bridged time and place, building on ancient foundations to develop a new spirit of musical exuberance and vitality.
Canberra: Friday 11 April 2025, 7.30pm, Wesley Church, 20 National Circuit, Forrest, Canberra
Sydney: Sunday 13 April 2025, 3.00pm, Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Entrepreneur
Celebrity culture thrived during the baroque period and Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the stars! A prolific composer of over 3,000 compositions that demonstrated an uncanny sense of popular musical trends, Telemann was the most famous composer in Germany in his day. Being skilled on eleven instruments gave him the ability to understand “each instrument and what suits it best”. He absorbed and incorporated music from throughout Europe, and boasted that he could compose in the “Italian, French, English, Scottish and Polish styles”. Telemann was also at the forefront of printing technology and was a brilliant promoter of his own publications, amassing hundreds of subscribers.
Canberra: Friday 18 July 2025, 7.30pm
Wesley Church, 20 National Circuit, Forrest, Canberra
Sydney: Sunday 20 July 2025, 3.00pm
Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Voice, Rejoice!
The versatility of the voice has fascinated composers through the ages, from its purest form to its most virtuosic. This concert presents music of extraordinary variety and exquisite beauty – from the rhythms and colours of Spanish song, the majesty of the German choral tradition, the refinement of French opera, and the passion and theatricality of Italian arias. Through exploration and experimentation, composers harnessed the voice to reflect a spectrum of nuanced emotions such as tenderness, frailty and resentment. Singers became celebrities as they gave voice to emotions ranging from sensuousness and high passion to dark themes of anguish and revenge. Drama was the currency of the day and singers were the “rock stars”!
Canberra: Friday 24 October 2025, 7.30pm
Wesley Church, 20 National Circuit, Forrest, Canberra
Sydney: Sunday 26 October 2025, 3.00pm
Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Salut Baroque